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Well, this morning started off exciting with a call from our son-in-law Lowell about 9 am telling us that Brandi was in labor so they weren’t going to have to induce it.

Then our son, Chris called about 15 minutes later to be sure we had heard the news.

Hearing this, we went ahead and booked Jan a flight out of Chicago Midway this afternoon at 5:50 pm and she finished up her packing. She’d done most of it last night in anticipation of this happening.

We left Elkhart about 1pm, stopping off at a CVS to get a new battery for Jan’s watch. She took it off Friday, November 30th, her last day of work and hasn’t worn it since. So it definitely needed a new battery.

When she retires, she retires!

Of course, things can’t go too smoothly. About 30 miles down the road we had a flat tire on the right rear of the truck. Nick had been nagging me to get a new tire on it since it was really showing its age, and some of the metal belt, too.

My tire pressure monitor system alerted me that I was losing pressure in that tire, luckily right before an exit, so I pulled off thinking I would find a tire place to put on my spare. But as luck would have it, by the time I got through the toll booth the tire was down to about 10 pounds, so I pulled over to a nice big parking area and started changing it myself.

I was thinking that after all the ragging Nick had done he would never let me live it down. However I really had the last laugh (well, as much as you can laugh while changing a flat, anyway), because as I was removing the old tire i found a nail sticking out of it.

So take that, Nick!

We got to Chicago Midway about 4:30 pm, in plenty of time for Jan’s 5:50pm flight, only to find out that it was delayed until 6:50.

Bummer!

We had both brought something to read in case this happening, but ran into a problem. I had planned to stay at the airport until Jan’s flight took off, but we found there is nowhere to sit outside the gate area. We were hoping for a restaurant or something so we could sit and wait until it got closer to her boarding time. But no luck.

So after talking it over, Jan said I should just go ahead and start home. After thinking it over I told Jan to go thru security and as soon as she got checked in at her gate, I would go ahead and leave.

She called about 20 minutes later, so I headed home. I was surprised to find almost no traffic on the way out of Chicago, I guess because I was on the toll road, but it was smooth sailing all the way.

Got back to the rig about 9 pm, and am now tracking Jan’s flight on a website called FlightStats. You enter the airline and flight number and it shows you a real-time map of the flight position, along with the speed, altitude, and distance from the destination.

Also talked with Lowell who said Brandi is doing fine. They’ve given her a pill to keep things moving along, and are still looking for Master Landon to arrive tomorrow sometime.

As it stands right now, it’s 10:47 pm EDT and Jan’s plane is 22 miles at 3500 feet, doing 315 miles an hour.

FlightStats says Jan’s plane has landed, so now I’ll wait to hear from her after she meets up with Chris.

It’s 11:04 and Jan just called to say she’d met up with the kids and they were going downstairs to get her luggage, and that she’d call me tomorrow.

Glad to know she’s safe and sound in Houston.

More tomorrow.

Quote of the Day:Remember, ‘stressed” is just “desserts” spelled backwards. Make the most of it.